践行“简单原则”

Carrying out the Principle of Simplicity

简单原则的“简单”指“逻辑简单性”,是科学的精髓,其哲学基础是“可证伪性”。践行简单原则导致科学研究范式的转换。简雅一体,追求理论的简雅是物理学也是语言学的一条价值标准。文章的主体先列举国内外语言学界践行简单原则的诸多范例,特别注重朱德熙在汉语语法方面做出的贡献,然后介绍笔者在这方面所做的工作。文章指出,对语言的科学研究要警惕“逆奥卡姆剃刀效应”,走出对科学和简单原则的认识误区,同时要重视分清主次。

The quintessence of science is the Principle of Simplicity,which refers to logical simplicity and is based on the concept of falsifiability.Paradigm shift in scientific research is driven by the Principle.Simplicity or elegance is a measure of value in both physics and linguistics.The main body of this paper introduces many examples of carrying out the Principle in language studies both in China and abroad,and the work done by the author in this respect.The author calls for guarding against the effect of Inverse Occam's Razor,dispelling misunderstandings of the Principle of Simplicity,and paying attention to drawing a clear primary-secondary distinction.